Resources

Spell Songs

Folk by the Oak have commissioned The Lost Words - Spell Songs, a musical project that will grow and flourish out of the original book. Spell Songs brings together eight remarkable musicians, whose music already engages deeply with landscape and nature, to respond to the creatures, art and language of The Lost Words. Spell Songs will allow these acclaimed and diverse musicians to weave together elements of British folk music, Senegalese folk traditions, experimental and classical music, and create an inspiring new body of work.

Penguin Challenge Cards

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the book’s publication, Penguin has released some new teaching resources, consisting of 12 Challenge Cards. The cards are all themed around The Lost Words; they are matched to curricula in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, with objectives including: ‘cultivating ethical, informed citizens’, and ‘improving the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils’ – amongst many others.

An Explorer’s Guide to The Lost Words

This free guide by Eva John (commissioned by The John Muir Trust) accompanies The Lost Words. It’s for anyone with an interest in nature, words and images who wants to explore further some of the ideas and creatures conjured up in The Lost Words - especially useful for teachers and educators.

From The Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, music composed and sung by the amazing Kerry Andrews this shows me painting a wren, Robert writing the wren spell on a special piece of work we did together and the soundtrack was linked with the speeded up process to create what I think is a chiming lullaby of wild.I’m using watercolour. Robert wrote in pencil. Kerry uses skill and magic to make the air vibrate.

— Jackie Morris

This is a trick I am trying to learn; how to bring an otter, out from the mind, onto paper, using the words of the otter spell by Robert Macfarlane from The Lost Words, published by Hamish Hamilton and illustrated by me.

— Jackie Morris

For the Cambridge Literature Festival 2018, Robert Macfarlane and I conjured an otter, using spring water from Nine Wells in Cambridge, sumi ink, pencil and gold leaf. 

— Jackie Morris

Jackie Morris conjures an otter at Waterstones, Lancaster in March 2018.

A film for Newsnight by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris about whether children spend enough time outdoors - and how The Lost Words addressed that.

The Lost Words: Seek Find Speak - a pre-production trailer.

The Lost Words: Seek Find Speak is dedicated to making performances as accessible as possible to audiences with sensory impairments. One of the ways we're doing this is using "makaton" - a signed language system designed to support spoken language. Here, Rhiannon Kearns performs “Weasel” using Makaton.

Robert Macfarlane talks to Waterstones shortly after the publication of The Lost Words in October 2017.

The Goldfinch Kid takes a walk through the bluebells at The Whirligig - home of our co-commissioners, Wild Rumpus.